Literature Reviews

Why Knowing What Others Know Puts You in the Know

Today’s Purposes

• Action research project questions• Understand how to do a literature review so

can do your own. (conductor)• Understand role of literature review in

empirical research. (consumer)• Review characteristics of qualitative research

– Sampling– Interviews/observations– Data analysis– Trustworthiness

• Knowledge Check

Quick Review

• Why be a “curious skeptic”? -or- Why is it important to be a good consumer of research?

• Differences between qualitative and quantitative research

• Hypothesis – what and when

• 2 kinds of theories?

CONDUCTORS and CONSUMERS

The Purposes of a Review

• General purpose - to relate previous research to the current problem being investigated– Provide contextual understanding– Contribute to the overall evaluation of the

credibility of the research– Indicate whether the nature of the research

is targeted to the reader’s needs

The Purposes of a Review

• Specific purposes– Refine the problem

• Delimit• Define terms; State researcher’s

definition

– Demonstrate how proposed study adds to knowledge base

– Draw from different fields of study

The Purposes of a Review

• Specific purposes– Rationalize methods

– Identify contradictions in existing research

– Justify hypotheses

CONDUCTORS

Steps to reviewing related literature

1. Skim search

2. Identify key terms

3. Identify seminal works

4. Hard-core search

5. Analyze literature

6. Synthesize literature

How to Begin

• Get an overview of the field.• Identify seminal works.• Identify (broadly):

– patterns– directions of research– terms– gaps– contradictory findings

Where to Begin

• Reviews handbooks, and yearbooks • Meta-analyses - quantitative syntheses of a

number of studies to arrive at an overall conclusion related to the topic being studied– ERIC Meta-Analysis Digests in educational

research– Best Evidence Synthesis - a review of quantitative

and qualitative studies selected according to specified criteria

Where to Search

Source Benefit Problem

Handbook Chapters

Comprehensive Possibility of bias

Journal Peer Review Peer review criteriaBias against nullMethods/ philosophical bias

Electronic Journal Current Peer review

Reference List Trace ancestry Out of date

Where to Search

Source Benefit Problem

Electronic Database

Comprehensive Not all peer reviewed

Social Science Citation Index

Trace descendants of seminal work

No recent publications

Personal Contacts Unpublished or obscure articles

Time consuming

Conference Paper Current Looser standards

Initial Reading

• SKIM!

• Read abstract

• Read introduction; locate study purpose

• Maybe read discussion and/or conclusion

Steps to reviewing related literature

1. Skim search

2. Identify key terms

3. Identify seminal works

4. Hard-core search

5. Analyze literature

6. Synthesize literature

Guidelines for Analyzing Literature

• Group articles

• Keep consistent notes1. Publication info

2. Main point of article

3. Methods

4. Findings

• Look for definitions of key terms

Note

• This takes time!

• Dead ends abound.

• Beauty of proximity.

• Befriend related fields of study.

CONSUMERS

Guidelines for Analyzing Literature

• Look for methodological strengths

• Look for methodological weaknesses

• Differentiate evidence and assertions

• Identify patterns in the literature

• Identify gaps in the literature

Qualitative Research Designs

The Curious Skeptics at work

Qualitative Research Problems

• When to use a Qualitative design– To understand a phenomenon about which

little is known (exploratory)– To gain a novel slant about a phenomenon

we do know about (novelty)– To obtain greater detail about phenomenon

that are difficult to understand through solely quantitative methods (process)

Qualitative Research Problems

• Identifies a central phenomena (i.e., an issue or process) being investigated– Examples of issues

• Drug abuse in high schools• Teacher burnout• Alienation of children with special needs

– Examples of processes• How teachers change to standards-based curricula• How students react to high stakes testing programs• How students incorporate teachers’ expectations into

their studies

Qualitative Research Problems

• Characteristics– Includes a single, central phenomena– Open-ended– General in nature– Emergent – Neutral with respect to what will be learned

• No hypotheses, but still may have “hunches”• Open to new information• No expected outcomes

Sample Research Question

• “How do students at an alternative school for students at-risk of dropping out of school perceive their learning environment?”

• “What changes do teachers and counselors make when their school is placed on probation under the No Child Left Behind Law? What remains the same?”

Qualitative Research Problems• Criteria for evaluating qualitative research

problems– Should not be too general or too specific– Should be amenable to change as data is collected

and analyzed– Should not be biased with restrictive assumptions or

desired findings– Should be written in “how” and “what” forms to focus

on describing the phenomena– The problem can include the participants and the site

• Key Idea: Emergent

Selecting Participants

• Use of purposeful sampling strategies to select “information rich” participants

• Not intended to be representative of larger population! (i.e., not random sampling). Contrast with most quantitative studies.

• Be clear about why selecting participants or state “convenience sampling”

Selecting Participants

• Purposeful sampling strategies– Maximum variation - selecting individuals

or cases to represent extremes• Very positive or very negative attitudes• Highest and lowest achieving students

– Snowball (i.e. network) - initially selected participants recommend others for involvement

Selecting Participants

• Purposeful sampling strategies– Sampling by case - selecting individuals or cases for

their unique characteristics• Extreme• Typical• Unique• Reputation

– Key informant - selecting an individual(s) particularly knowledgeable about the setting and/or topic

– Comprehensive - selecting all relevant individuals or cases

Interview Protocols

• Rapport• Unstructured in nature, yet have focus• General (“grand tour”) questions to

specific questions based on participant responses

• Tape recording and transcribing interviews afford the opportunity to study the data carefully

Observations

• Unstructured in nature, yet have focus• Role of the researcher–Continuum between observer and participant

Complete Observer Participant Complete Observer Participant ObserverParticipant

–This should be clear in the study!

Trustworthiness

Credibility Internal Validity

Degree of truth for individuals

Transferability External Validity

Degree of application to other contexts

Dependability Reliability Replicable

Confirmability Objectivity Findings are product of inquiry

Qualitative Quantitative Definition

Data Analysis

• Systematically examine, summarize, and synthesize the data

• Data collection and data analysis tightly coupled (constant comparative method)

• This should be explained thoroughly in the Methods section!

Data Analysis

• Coding– Organizing the data into reasonable,

meaningful units that are coded with words or very short phrases that signify a category

– Use of major codes and sub-codes is common

Data Analysis

“Because the creation of codes is up to each researcher and is critical to the study, it is important to know something about how the codes were created” (McMillan, 2004, p. 268).

BE SPECIFIC AND EXPLICIT!

Data Analysis

• Summarizing the coded data

• Pattern seeking and synthesizing– Identify relationships – Draws inferences– Enlarge, combine, subsume, and create

new categories that make sense– Seek data that does not fit– Give raw data as evidence